Blades of Time Review: Lovely Visuals and Lots of Fun Action

Blades of Time is an action title that takes place in Dragonland which is said to be full of treasure. Instead, you find yourself in the middle of a mystery trying to figure out what is going on in this magical land while looking for a way to get out. The main character, Ayumi, is not my most favorite character – I don’t care too much for her personality. I must also mention that the voice acting is unfortunately, not very good, especially when she is talking to herself (you the player) about situations. When in discussion with other characters it’s not as bad, but as often as she speaks to herself, it would have been a good idea to get it right.

One of the first things you might notice when playing through Blades of Time is that the storyline can be a bit tough to follow. I don’t think they provided enough detail or made it very clear, which makes it difficult to know exactly what’s going on. For me personally, I could have used a little more background in order to get a good feel for the story, so unfortunately throughout the game I pretty much had to put the pieces together as I went. It’s not a real deep or complex story and I did find some things to be interesting, I just wish the story was told a little bit better.

The gameplay in Blades of Time is where this title wins for me. I love its style and how well it handles. It makes the fighting a lot of fun and it feels really good. You fight with double swords and you have multiple combos you can pull off. You also have a rifle for a weapon which works great on certain enemies. You are gifted with special powers from an alter and you will find many of these scattered throughout the game. These special powers are also a lot of fun to perform and one of the nice things about the game is that they are easy to use as well. However, if you are someone who has problems learning combos, thankfully the game makes you kill 10 enemies in a simulation with that one special combo before you can move on. It really did handle the action sequences wonderfully though.

I should also mention that I am a sucker for these types of action titles that have a lot of hack and slash and so forth. This one certainly did a great job with it and I would imagine a lot of people will really enjoy the action sequences the game has to offer. You also have special kill moves that you can perform on enemies as well. One of the biggest factors in the gameplay is having the ability to rewind time. The control of this is also excellent and easy to understand. It’s also a great deal of fun and they have built-in a lot of enemies around the use of the rewind feature. So you will need to make sure you use the feature in order to kill specific enemies. I should make it clear, when you rewind time, you personally do not go back in time. You stay still right where you are and watch everyone else including your past self go backwards in time. As I said, this feature is a lot of fun and very useful and there are some fun battles built around the use of this feature. It’s fun to see five of you shooting at a single boss.

There are a wide variety of enemies for you to go up against. They can also be very difficult for you to handle as this title is a rather tough one. There also is no difficulty level in this game for you to change. You’ll experience times where it gets really tough, but as long as you take your time with each situation and use all of your abilities the way they need to be used you will come out alright. It can still be mighty tough though, especially with some of the bosses. I must say that the bosses are also really good, some better than others. Some are tough because they have a large number of enemies along with them. I think you will find each battle good and tough but will feel really satisfied once you do defeat a boss.

There is another mode called Outbreak mode which features online co-op play. It’s not necessary to play online as it does feature a single player mode as well. Basically, in outbreak mode you have the enemy outpost and your own outpost. The goal is to destroy their outpost before they destroy your own. You’ll be facing all the typical enemies in this mode as well as bosses. It’s another fun mode to play for additional gameplay, especially if you play it online with another. This mode has 4 different difficulty levels for you to play as well so it won’t always be so easy.

The visuals were something that impressed me, as it has a lot of good open scenery in certain areas and also a good amount of color that’s pleasing to the eye. When it comes to the sounds of the game, as I had already made a point of, the voice acting on the main character is poor. The other characters are alright. The music didn’t really standout for me either.

I really enjoyed playing through Blades of Time and it helped that it had a very enjoyable combat system and especially so with the use of rewinding time. The enemies were a great deal of fun to battle against and it had lovely and colorful visuals throughout. My only complaint was that from the beginning I had a hard time figuring out what exactly was going on with the story and for getting a good feel for the lead character. It could have been presented a lot better and had it been, this would have been a very good title.

It’s not deep when it comes to building up your character with upgrades and such, but there is enough and I didn’t have a problem with that. The game plays out fine just the way it is and you can still find treasure chests with items for you to equip. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a hack and slash action title full of additional combos and features and especially for the time rewind feature as it really helps create for some very interesting and enjoyable fights.

Andrew Stevens is a Guest Editor at FanBolt for Gaming and Technology. He has over 8 years of experience working within the gaming industry which includes time at Bethesda Softworks. His unique view of the industry and passion for gaming can be found within each one of his editorials. Andrew also loves PC gaming and enjoys tinkering with new hardware. He also can’t get enough speed when it comes to racing games and doesn’t mind navigating through swarms of bullets in any shmup. He considers Rez as the greatest game ever. Andrew's opinions are his own and do not reflect the opinions of his place of employment.